Page 21 of Slay King

I leaned back, surprised that he knew that.

“Sweets, Mafia. Remember? We knew everything about Churchill Millroe before we broke into his house that day. Including the security system code, his schedule, his wife’s schedule,” he replied, wrapping my hair around his fist. “Rumor Ariella LeBlanc.”

Hearing my name—the one on my birth certificate—caused me to still. If he knew that, how long had he known? Since the moment he’d picked me up at the service station?

“Sweets,” he said in a gentle tone, letting go of my hair to touch my cheek, “the Mafia, baby, we don’t leave anything unturned. We are thorough. The bastard changed your name, but that didn’t erase it.”

I’d begged Hill to let me keep the name Ariella. I wasn’t one hundred percent positive, but I’d been told that my mother’s name was Ariella. She’d named me after herself. It could have been a lie, but I clung to it. Wanted it to be true because it had given me a beginning. Someone I had belonged to. Had a connection to. When Hill had taken it from me, completely wiping out the only history I had, I’d mourned it.

“I want it back,” I said.

He nodded. “Okay. We’ll change it back.”

I stared at him. “I can do that?”

King leaned in close, pressing a kiss to my chin. “Yeah, sweets, we can.”

The swell of joy inside my chest, spreading through me, was one of those rare things.

Leaning back to look at me, King narrowed his eyes slightly as he studied me. “Those unshed tears are happy, right?” he asked.

I nodded my head and ran my hands up his arms to grab his biceps, and they flexed under my touch. “What was that about a shower?”

He flashed a wicked grin at me. “You’re done with the questions? You didn’t ask my full name.”

I leaned closer to him. “King Chasen Salazar.”

His eyes widened.

“Maeme called you that the first night you brought me here,” I reminded him.

“And you remembered? With all the shit you’d dealt with that day?” He seemed surprised.

I lifted a shoulder. “I was terrified, running from the cops, but I was still a female who had been rescued by the most beautiful man she’d ever met.”

King gripped my waist and lifted me off him, standing me up. “Beautiful? Really? Not sexy? Charming?” he asked as he stood.

“Those things too,” I replied.

A deep, pleased sound came from his chest as he reached for my sundress and tugged it up, sliding it over my hips until it was bunched at my waist.

“Lift your hands.”

I did as told and let him take it the rest of the way off me. Standing there in nothing but a pair of white satin panties, I stared up at him. His appreciative gaze drifted down my body as he ran a hand down my back until he was cupping my butt. When he squeezed it, a low groan came from him.

“Let me spank it.”

Tingles danced throughout my body. I didn’t try to speak, giving him a nod. The flare of heat in his blue depths caused me to shiver. He enjoyed this. And as terrified as it seemed I should be, I knew what he wanted to do was nothing like what I’d experienced with Hill.

King brought pleasure with each strike. His words were seductive, addictive, not painful and degrading. I couldn’t imagine ever trusting anyone else like this, but with him, it was easy. I wanted it too. His arousal only spurred mine on.

He sat back down, then took my hand in his and pulled me over his lap. I gasped and tensed, turning to stare up at him. This wasn’t what I’d been expecting. His focus wasn’t on me though. He seemed transfixed on my bottom as he ran his hand over it, slipping his fingertips just underneath the edge of my panties.

“Relax,” he murmured.

That seemed like an impossible task in this position. The uncertainty, mixed with the helplessness and sense of being exposed, was exciting. Did that make me deranged?

His hand lifted slowly before coming down with a firm, hard smack, causing me to jump. A rumble of pleasure came from him as he brushed his fingertips over the skin that was currently stinging.

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